IT IS one of the inspirational legends of Indian journalism that James Hickey, founder and editor of the Bengal Gazette — this country’s first newspaper, with its first edition going back to January 1780 — was a fearless seeker of the truth, taken to court and imprisoned by Warren Hastings, then governor-general. Reality is a little different. Hickey’s paper was often a gossipy, yellow rag. It thought nothing of publishing scurrilous...

What began as a few whispers is now a booming drumbeat. Powerful senior ministers are asserting that the Right to Information Act (RTI), till now flaunted as one of the UPA government’s biggest gifts to the aam aadmi, is “transgressing into government functioning”. Similar misgivings are being voiced on another constitutional body that has been in the news lately—the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG). Put together, this has...

-PTI   The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is probing several high-profile corruption cases, had demanded only partial exemption from the ambit of the RTI Act as per its initial proposal but later pressed for a blanket cover which was approved by the government this year. The file notings provided by the Department of Personnel and Training, under RTI Act, show that in 2007, Committee of Secretaries had rejected the demand of...

-The Economic Times   Prominent activist and key Anna associate Arvind Kejriwal claimed the income-tax notice asking him to pay dues of 9 lakh to the government is prompted by "political bosses" and without merit. The notice was slapped on him in August, days before Anna started the second round of his indefinite anti-graft hunger strike. The I-T notice and related developments threatened to deteriorate into yet another nasty row between Team Anna and...

The movement around Anna Hazare's fast highlights a worrying trend. No, it's not corruption. That we know. The worry is: Is Indian democracy in a state of decay? Democracy in this largest of all democratic nations seems to be working fine at first glance. We vote regularly and throw out parties in power when a majority wants change. We have a free press. We have an independent judiciary. But there's...